/*
 * Copyright 2004 The Apache Software Foundation.
 * 
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * 
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 * 
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
 
package org.apache.commons.betwixt.io;

import org.apache.commons.betwixt.ElementDescriptor;

/**
 * <p>Context against which content should be written.</p>
 * <p>
 * <strong>Usage:</strong>
 * This (logical) interface is a <em>Parameter Object</em>
 * allowing additional, <code>Betwixt</code>-specific information
 * to be passed through the SAX-inspired writing API.
 * </p> 
 * <p>
 * It is likely that access will be required to methods in the
 * <code>Context</code> used by the {@link AbstractBeanWriter}
 * but it seems better to add these as neccessary using delegation
 * rather than extending {@link Context}.
 * </p>
 * @author <a href='http://jakarta.apache.org/'>Jakarta Commons Team</a>
 * @since 0.5
 */
public abstract class WriteContext {
    
    /**
     * Gets the descriptor for the element who content 
     * is currently being created. 
     * 
     * @return the <code>ElementDescriptor</code> for the 
     * current element (or null if there is no current element) 
     */
    public abstract ElementDescriptor getCurrentDescriptor();
    
}